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Recreating the Past by PCR

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The Polymerase Chain Reaction

Abstract

Evolutionists are driven by a desire to find out when and how past populations and species lived and how they were related to each other. Morphologically inclined evolutionists can satisfy this desire by studying fossils. Molecular evolutionists on the other hand, who tend to get the most satisfaction out of nucleic acid sequences, have access only to contemporary sequences and can only indirectly infer what the ancestral sequences may have looked like. To achieve this, phylogenetics has developed into a dynamic and confrontational field. However, when all the analyses is done, molecular evolutionists are left with a gnawing sense of insecurity since what they are left with is only the “most parsimonious” or “most likely” tree. It seems we will never be able to obtain certain knowledge of the past.

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Authors
  1. Matthias Höss
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  2. Oliva Handt
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  3. Svante Pääbo
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA

    Kary B. Mullis

  2. The Immune Response Corporation, 5935 Darwin Court, Carlsbad, CA, 92008, USA

    François Ferré

  3. Institute for Molecular Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Richard A. Gibbs

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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Höss, M., Handt, O., Pääbo, S. (1994). Recreating the Past by PCR. In: Mullis, K.B., Ferré, F., Gibbs, R.A. (eds) The Polymerase Chain Reaction. Birkhäuser, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0257-8_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0257-8_22

  • Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-8176-3750-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-0257-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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